Currency hedging in emerging market investments

• Ano de defesa: 2019
• Autor(a) principal: Jamil, Mehdi
• Orientador(a): Chague, Fernando Daniel
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: eng
• Palavras-chave em Português: Relação de hedge de mínima variância (MVHR); Mercado emergente (EM); Taxa de hedge ótima
• Palavras-chave em Inglês: Forward premium; Minimum-variance hedge ratio (MVHR); Emerging market (EM); Optimal hedging ratio
• Link de acesso: http://hdl.handle.net/10438/26098

This paper investigates whether currencies enhance performance of portfolios diversified over a number of different international markets from the perspective of an American based investor and determines what is the source and the extend of the added value. While the US market is considered to be the largest in the world, emerging markets are smaller, more volatile and contain more inherent risks but they do present huge potential and diversification opportunities for investors. Hence adding these foreign investments into their portfolios present risk reduction benefits for investors but it exposes them to the notion of currency risk. Hedging currency exposure could help mitigate those risks but it at what cost? It is indeed shown that hedging levels have different impacts on performance but also on the volatility associated with those investments. This paper aims at showing this risk-return dilemma, and explore optimal hedging strategies to mitigate against currency exposures in American emerging markets.